#glima

Here’s something I’m really excited about: I edited and republished a historical work! Search “Icelandic Wrestling: A Study on Brókartök Glíma: A Viking Martial Art” to find it on Amazon! You can also check out vinlandhema on Instagram if you’re interested in this sort of thing, all the techniques in this manual are detailed on that page (check out the Brókartök highlight).

Brókartök Glíma is a martial art and folkstyle of wrestling, part of the broader umbrella of Glíma brought to Iceland by its Viking settlers. Glima is an authentic viking martial art, still practiced today. Brókartök is the most well known aspect of Glíma, the pants grip variation of Glíma, where both players take and use a fixed grip on the pants throughout the match. There’s a few theories on why, and my afterword for this text explains every theory I’ve come across. Brókartök literally translates to pants-grip from Icelandic.

Glima is a Scandinavian martial arts system used by the fearless Vikings.

In order to survive or win a battle, Viking warriors were expected to master a fight with and without weapons. Strength wasn’t the only way to dominate your opponent even though the Vikings were famous for their strength and brute force. To advance their combat skills and dominate the battlefield causing a Viking age they developed a traditional and quite ancient martial art system which they implemented into their other fighting skills. This martial arts system called Glima was practiced by men and women of all ages.

Glima is mentioned in Old Norse texts. In the Prose Edda, in the book of Gylfaginning one can read how the Norse God Thor took his journey to Utgards-Loki and was defeated in a wrestling match by the female jötunn Elli (Old Norse “Elli” means “old age”).

It might seem odd that mighty God Thor was defeated by an old woman, but she was skilled in the martial art of Glima.

But Thor was also familiar with Glima. Glima was so important for Viking society that their most popular god, Thor, was also the god of wrestling.

The word Glima in Old Norse means glimpse or flash. The name tells it all and that is to destroy your opponent in a glimpse of a second.

Due to lack of historical written records it’s difficult to determine when Glima became a popular ancient martial art.

What is known is that according to the Jónsbók law book from 1325 AD., original Norwegian settlers in Iceland brought Viking wrestling and the Glima combat systems with them to the island.

Glima is also mentioned in the Icelandic medieval book of laws known as Grágás (Gray Goose Laws), which refers to a collection of earlier Norwegian laws, there were rules for wrestling.

The Vikings were mostly farmers and animal breeders but they plundered when times got tough. They did this in order to survive. This technique was invented by the people and it spread variously when the Viking age struck. Women and men were implementing it in their raids and had an element of surprise to their opponents. This was a type of wrestling and it was considered a sport, they even implemented it in their gods.

Because Glima was used everywhere around the Viking culture it became a tradition. Children from the age of 6 -7 years old started training this technique and mastered it until they reached the age where they could fight. In some ways then Viking society was much more martial than one had realised before.

This ancient martial art system is divided into two categories known as Combat Glima and Sport Glima.

Combat Glima - Lausatok (Løse-tak) was used in mainly used by Viking warriors for self-defense and combat.

Combat Glima and the martial art style includes throws, blows, kicks, chokes, locks, pain techniques, and weapon techniques. Many expert consider combat Glima to be comparable with the best complete martial arts systems from around the world.

Sport Glima was in ancient times practiced by men, women and children. It was a popular and most widespread sport in the Viking Age.

Sport Glima consists of several Scandinavian wrestling styles such as Lausatok (free-grip glima), Hryggspenna (back-hold glima) and Brokartok (trouser-grip glima). Sport Glima has complex rules with competitors divided into several classes based on strength and skill.

The most popular style in Iceland and Sweden is Brokartök. It’s Iceland’s national sport.

Brokatok is the most widespread among the types of glima in Iceland.  Brokatok is more focussed on strength. The two wrestlers wear a special belt around their  waist, they also have belts on their thighs and on each leg.

Hyrgspenna or  backhold wrestling is similar to other types of wrestling. Hyrgspenna is more  of a  test of strength. In this type of glima, the participants take hold of  each other’s body, and whoever touches the ground with any part of the body  except the feet, will lose.

Lausatok, which is also called loose-grip or  free-grip, is quite aggressive compared to the other types of glima. All kinds of wrestling  techniques are allowed.

Glima was a demonstration sport at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games.

The tradition of Glima has been kept alive and the sport  is still very popular in Scandinavia.

It was five years and six months in the making. Five years since Dmitry had first mentioned to his husband his wish to be a father. Six months since they had decided that they were finally ready to make that wish a reality. They did as much research as they could possibly handle. They made appointments with as many adoption agencies and foster care agencies as they could, and had finally narrowed it down to one foster care agency that they felt was right for them. They had gone to the orientation, they had attended the classes, and they had filled out the application to become foster parents. They had their home inspected just the previous week before, and had passed with flying colors. It was all extremely exciting for Dmitry. Things were coming to fruition very quickly, and he was excited to welcome a child (or even children. He was open to anything) into their home.

Dmitry kept his phone on his person at all times over the next several weeks. He waited and waited for a call from the agency to say that they had a child to assign to Gleb and Dmitry, but no call came. A month went by...then two...and still nothing. He was starting to grow discouraged, but he ultimately knew that the agency would assign them a child when there was a child to assign.

He sat at the bar, staring down at his phone with a downcast expression. He just wanted a call, or a text, or something that would bring him news of a child. Still, nothing. Just as Dmitry was about to say something to his husband about it, however, the phone lit up and started buzzing against the bar counter. He didn’t recognize the number, but it was a New York number, so it was unlikely to be a spam call. He picked up the phone and hit the green button to answer it. “Hello?” he spoke nervously. “Yes, this is he...oh! Hi!” His gaze moved to Gleb and a smile crossed his face. “Yes, yes of course we’re still interested...really? Yes, we are open to more than one...okay...tomorrow morning sounds great! Thank you so much!” Dmitry hung up the phone and his grin only grew larger.